Til 



Hoee Collection 

190163 

1912 



WILLIAM Mckinley, 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS 



JOHN HAY. 



Delivered in the Capitol February 27, 1902, 
by invitation of the congress. 



WASH INGTON 
1902. 



WILLIAM Mckinley. 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS 



JOHN HAY. 



Delivered in the Capitol February 27, 1902, 
by invitation of the congress. 



WASHINGTON. 
1902. 



L7II 



so, 
w . 

^ WILLIAM McKIXLEY. 
5: 

For the third time the Congress of the United States are assem- 
bled to commemorate the life and the death of a President slain 
by the hand of an assassin. The attention of the futnre historian 
will be attracted to the feattires which reappear with startling 
sameness in all three of these awful crimes: the nselessness, the 
utter lack of consequence of the act: the obscurity, the insignifi- 
cance of the criminal: the blamelessness— so far as in our sphere 
of existence the best of men may be held blameless— of the victim. 
Not one of our murdered Presidents had an enemy in the world; 
they were all of such preeminent purity of life that no pretext 
could be given for the attack of passional crime: thev were all 
men of democratic instincts who could never have offended the 
most jealous advocates of equality: they were of kindly and gen- 
erous nature, to whom wrong or injustice was impossible": of 
moderate fortune, whose slender means nobody could envy. 
They were men of austere virtue, of tender heart, of eminent abili- 
ties, which they had devoted with single minds to the good of the 
Republic. If ever men walked before God and man without 
blame, it was these three rulers of our people. The only tempta- 
tion to attack their lives offered was their gentle radiance— to 
eyes hating the light that was offense enough." 

The stupid nselessness of such an infamy affronts the common 
sense of the world. One can conceive how'the death of a dictator 
may change the political conditions of an Empire: how the ex- 
tinction of a narrowing line of kings may bring in an alien dynasty. 
But in a well-ordered Republic like ours, the riiler may fall, but 
the State feels no tremor. Our beloved and revered" leader is 
gone— but the natural process of our laws provides us a successor, 
identical in purpose and ideals, nourished by the same teachings, ' 
inspired by the same principles, pledged by tender affection as 
well as by high loyalty to carry to completion the immense task 
committed to his hands, and to smite with iron severity every 
manifestation of that hideous crime which his mild predecessor, 
with his d>4ng breath, forgave. The savings of celestial wisdom 
have no date: the words that reach us, over two thousand years, 
out of the darkest hour of gloom the world has ever known, are 
true to the life to-day: '-They know not what they do." The' 
blow struck at our dear friend and ruler was as deadly as blind 
hate could make it; but the blow struck at anarchy was deadlier 
still. 

What a world of insoluble problems such an event excites in 
the mind! Not merely in its per.sonal. but in its public aspects, 
it presents a paradox not to be comprehended. Under a system 
of government so free and so impartial that we recognize its exist- 
ence only by its benefactions: under a social order .so purely 
democratic that classes can not exist in it. affording opportunities 
so universal that even conditions are as changing as the winds, 
where the laborer of to-day is the capitalist of to-morrow; under 

3 



laws which are the result of ages of evolution, so uniform and 
so beneficent that the President has just the same rights and 
privileges as the artisan: we see the same hellish growth of 
hatred and murder which dogs equally the footstejjs of benevo- 
lent uKtuurclis and l)lood-stained despots. How many countries 
can join with us in tlie community of a kindred sorrow! I will 
not s])eak of those distant regions where assassination enters into 
the daily life of government. But among the nations bound to 
us by the ties of familiar intercoiirse — who can forget that wise 
and high-minded Autocrat who had earned the proxid title of the 
Liberator':' that enlightened and magnanimous citizen whom 
France still mourns':' that brave and chivalrous King of Italy 
who only lived for his people':' and. saddest of all. that lovely and 
sorrowing Empress, whose harmless life could hardly have ex- 
cited tlie animosity of a demon. Against that devilish .spirit 
nothing avails — neither virtue, nor patriotism, nor age nor youth, 
nor conscience nor pity. We can not even say that education is 
a sufficient safeguard against this baleful evil — for most of the 
WTetches whose crimes have so shocked humanity in recent years 
are men not unlettered, who have gone from the common schools, 
through murder, to the scaffold. 

Our minds can not discern the origin, nor conceive the extent 
of wickedness so perverse and so cruel: but this does not exempt us 
from the diity of trying to control and counteract it. We do not 
understand what electricity is; whence it comes or what its hid- 
den properties may lie. But we know it as a mighty force for 
good or evil — and so with the painful toil of years, men of learn- 
ing and skill have labored to store and to subjugate it. to neiitral- 
ize. and even to employ its destructive energies. This problem of 
anarchy is dark and intric.ite. but it ought to be within the com- 
pass of democratic government — althoiigh no sane mind can 
fathom the mysteries of these untracked and orbitless natures — 
to guard against their aberrations, to take away from them the 
hope of escape, the long hixury of scandalous days in court, the 
unwholesome sympathy of hysterical degenerates, and so by de- 
grees to make the crime not worth committing, even to these ab- 
normal and distorted soiils. 

It would 1)6 presumptiious for me in this presence to suggest 
the details of remedial legislation for a malady so malignant. 
That task may safely be left to the skill and i^atience of the Na- 
tional Congress, which have never been found imeqiial to any such 
emergency. The country believes that the memory of three mur- 
dered comrades of yours — all of whose voices still haunt these 
walls — will b^ a sufficient inspiration to enable you to solve even 
this abstruse and painful prol)leni. which has dimmed so many 
pages of history with blood and with tears. 

Before an audience less symiiathetic than this. I should not dare 
to speak of that great career which we have met to commemo- 
rate. But we are all his friends, and friends do not criticise each 
other's words about an open grave. I thank you for the honor 
you have done me in inviting me here, and not less for the kind 
forbearance I know I sliall have from you in my most inadequate 
efforts to .s])('ak of liim woi-thily. 

The life of William McKinley was. from his birth to his death, 
typically American. There is no enviromnent, I should say, any- 
where else in the world which could ])roduce just such a charac- 
ter. He was Ijorn into that way of life which elsewhere is called 



the middle class, but which in this country is so nearly universal 
as to make of other classes an almost negligible (juantity. He 
was neither rich nor poor, neither proud nor humble; he knew 
no hunger he was not sure of satisfying, no luxury which could 
enervate mind or body. His parents were sober. God-fearing 
people; intelligent and upright; without pretension and without 
humility. He grew up in the company of boys like himself; 
wholesome, honest, self-respecting. They looked down on no- 
body; they never felt it possible they could be looked down upon. 
Their houses were the homes of probity, piety, patriotism. They 
learned in the acjmirable school readers of fifty years ago the les- 
sons of heroic.and splendid life which have come down from the 
past. They read in their weekly newspapers the story of the 
world's progress, in which they were eager to take part, and of 
the sins and wrongs of civilization with which they burned to do 
battle. It was a serious and thoughtful time. The boys of that 
day felt dimly, but deeply, that days of sharp struggle and high 
achievement were before them. They looked at life with the 
wondering yet resolute eyes of a young esquire in his vigil of 
arms. They felt a time was coming when to them should be ad- 
dressed the stern admonition of the Apostle, '" Qiiit you like men; 
be strong.'' 

It is not easy to give to those of a later generation any clear idea 
of that extraordinary spiritual awakening which passed over the 
country at the first red signal fires of the Civil War. It was not 
our earliest apocalypse: a hundred years before the nation had 
been revealed to itself, when after long discussion and miTch 
searching of heart the people of the colonies had resolved that 
to live without liberty was worse than to die. and had therefore 
wagered in the solemn game of war "their lives, their fortunes, 
and their sacred honor." In a stress of heat and labor unut- 
terable, the country had been hammered and welded together; but 
thereafter for nearly a century there had been nothing in our 
life to touch the innermost fountain of feeling and devotion; we 
had had rumors of wars — even wars we had had, not withoiit 
sacrifices and glory — but nothing which went to the vital self- 
consciousness of the country, nothing which challenged the na- 
tion's right to live. But in 1860 the nation was going down into 
the Valley of Decision. The question which had been debated on 
thousands of platforms, which had been discussed in countless 
piiblications, which, thundered from innumerable pulpits, had 
caused in their congregations the bitter strife and dissension to 
which only cases of conscience can give rise, was everywhere 
pressing for solution. And not merely in the various channels of 
piTblicity was it alive and clamorous. About every fireside in the 
land, in the conversation of friends and neighbors, and, deeper 
still, in the secret of millions of human hearts, the battle of opinion 
was waging; and all men felt and saw — with more or less clear- 
ness — that an answer to the importunate question. Shall the nation 
live? was due, and not to be denied. And I do not mean that in 
the North alone there was this austere wrestling with conscience. 
In the South as well, below all the effervescence and excitement 
of a people perhaj^s more given to eloquent speech than we were, 
there was the profound agony of question and answer, the sum- 
mons to decide whether honor and freedom did not call them to 
revolvition and war. It is easy for partisanship to say that the 



(i 

one side was right and that the other was wrong. It is still easier 
for an indolent magnanimity to say that lioth were right. Per- 
haps in the wide view of ethics one is always right to follow his 
conscience, though it lead him to disaster and death. Biit history 
is inexorable. She takes no account of sentiment and intention: 
and in her cold and luminous eyes that side is right which fights 
in harmony with the stars in their courses. The men are right 
through whose efforts and struggles the world is helped onward, 
and humanity moves to a higher level and a brighter day. 

The men who are li\-ing to-day and who were young in 1860 will 
never forget the glory and glamour that filled tli^ earth and the 
sky when the long twilight of doubt and uncertainty was ending 
and the time of action had come. A speech by Abraham Lincoln 
was an event not only of high moral significance, but of far-reach- 
ing importance: the 'drilling of a militia company by Ellsworth 
attracted national attention: the fluttering of the flag in the clear 
sky drew tears from the eyes of young men. Patriotism, which 
had been a rhetorical expression, became a passionate emotion, 
in which instinct, logic, and feehng were fused. The country 
was worth sa\ang: it could be saved only by fire; no sacrifice was 
too great; the young men of the country were ready for the sac- 
rifice; come weal, come woe, they were ready. 

At seventeen years of age William McKinley heard this sum- 
mons of his country. He was the sort of youth to whom a military 
life in ordinary times would possess no attractions. His nature 
was far different from that of the ordinary soldier. He had other 
dreams of life, its prizes and pleasures, than that of marches and 
battles. But to his mind there was no choice or question. The ban- 
ner floating in the morning breeze was the beckoning gesture of 
his country. The thrilling notes of the trumpet called him— him 
and none other— into the ranks. His portrait in his first uniform is 
familiar to you all— the short, stocky figure: the quiet, thoughtful 
face; the deep, dark eyes. It is the face of a lad who could not 
stay at home when he thought he was needed in the field. He 
was of the stuff of which good soldiers are made. Had he been 
ten years older he would have entered at the head of a company 
and come out at the head of a division. But he did what he 
could. He enlisted as a private: he learned to obey. His serious, 
sensible ways, his prompt, alert efficiency soon attracted the at- 
tention of his ^superiors. He was so faithful in little things they 
gave him more and more to do. He was untiring in camp and on 
the march: swift, cool, and fearless in fight. He left the army 
with field rank when the war ended, brevetted by President Lin- 
coln for gallantry in l)attle. 

In coming years when men seek to draw the moral of our great 
civil war nothing will seem to them so admirable in all the his- 
tory of <mr two magnificent armies as the way in which the war 
came to a close. When the Confederate army saw the time had 
come, they acknowledged the pitiless logic of facts, and ceased 
fighting. When the army of the Union saw it was no longer 
needed, without a murmur or (piestion, making no terms, asking- 
no return, in the flush of victory and fullness of might, it laid 
downi its arms and melted back into the mass of peaceful citizens. 
There is no event, since the nation was born, which has so proved 
its solid capacity for self-government. Both sections share 
equally in that ci'own of glory. They had held a debate of in- 



comparable importance and had fought it ont with equal energy. 
A conclusion had been reached— and it is to the everlasting honor 
of both sides that they each knew when the war was over, and 
the hour of a lasting peace had striick. We may admire the des- 
perate daring of others who prefer annihilation to compromise, 
but the palm of common sense, and. I will say, of enlightened 
patriotism, belongs to the men like Grant and Lee, who knew 
when they had fought enough, for honor and for country. 

William McKinley. one of that sensible million of men, gladly 
laid down his sword and betook himself to his books. He quickly 
made up the time lost in soldiering. He attacked his Blackstone 
as he would have done a hostile entrenchment: finding the range 
of a country law library too narrow, he went to the Albany Law 
School, where he worked energetically with brilliant success; was 
admitted to the bar and settled down to practice— a brevetted 
veteran of 24 — in the quiet town of Canton, now and henceforward 
forever famous as the scene of his life and his place of sepulture. 
Here many blessings awaited him: high repute, professional suc- 
cess, and a domestic affection so pure, so devoted and stainless 
that future poets, seeking an ideal of Christian marriage, will find 
in it a theme worthy of their songs. This is a subject to which 
the lightest allusion seems profanation: but it is impossible to 
speak'of William McKinley withovit remembering that no truer, 
tenderer knight to his chosen lady ever lived among mortal men. 
If to the spirits of the just made perfect is permitted the conscious- 
ness of earthly things, we may be sure that his faithful soul is 
now watching over that gentle su^fferer who counts the long hours 
in their shattered home in the desolate splendor of his fame. 

A man possessing the qualities with which nature had en- 
dowed McKinley seeks political activity as naturally as a groA\nng 
plant seeks light and air. A wholesome ambition: a rare power 
of making friends and keeping them: a faith, which may be 
called religious, in his country and its institiitions: and, flowing 
from this, a belief that a man could do no nobler work than to 
serve siich a country — these were the elements in his character 
that drew him irresistibly into public life. He had from the be- 
ginning a remarkable equipment: a manner of singular grace and 
charm: a voice of ringing quality and great carrying power— vast 
as were the crowds that gathered about him. he reached their ut- 
most fringe without apparent effort. He had an extraordinary 
power of marshaling and presenting significant facts, so as to 
bring conviction to the average mind. His range of reading was 
not wide: he read only what he might some day find useful, and 
what he read his memory held like brass. Those who knew him 
well in those early days can never forget the consummate skill 
and power wntli which he woixld select a few pointed facts, and, 
blow iipon blow, w^ould hammer them into the attention of great 
assemblages in Ohio, as Jael drove the nail into the head of the 
Canaanite captain. He was not often impassioned; he rarely re- 
sorted to the aid of wit or humor; yet I never saw his equal in 
controlling and convincing a popular audience by sheer appeal to 
their reason and intelligence. He did not flatter or cajole them, 
but there was an implied compliment in the serious and sober 
tone in which he addressed them. He seemed one of them: in 
heart and feeling he u-as one of them. Each workingman in a 
great crowd might say: That is the sort of man I would like to be, 



8 

and under more favorinu: circninstances might have been. He had 
the di\'ine gift of sympathy, which, though given only to the 
elect, makes all men their friends. 

So it came naturally about that in 1876 — the beginning of the 
second century of the Republic — he began, by an election to Con- 
gi'ess, his political career. Thereafter for fourteen years this 
Chamber was his home. I iTse the word advisedly. Nowhere in 
the world was he so in harmony with his environment as here; 
nowhere else did his mind work with such full consciousness of 
its powers. The air of debate was native to him; here he drank 
delight of battle with his peers. In after days, when he drove by 
this stately pile, or when on rare occasions his duty called him 
here, he greeted his old haunts with the affectionate zest of a 
child of tht? house; during all the last ten years of his life, filled 
as they were with activity and glory, he never ceased to be home- 
sick for this Hall. When he came to the Presidency, there was 
not a day when his Congressional service was not of use to him. 
Probably no other President has been in such full and cordial 
communion with Congress, if we may except Lincoln alone. 
McKinley knew the legislative body thoroughly, its composition, 
its methods, its habits of thought. He had the profoundest respect 
for its authority and an inflexible belief in the ultimate rectitude 
of its purposes. Our history shows how siirely an Execiative 
courts disaster and ruin by assuming an attitude of hostility or 
distrust to the Legislature; and. on the other hand. McKinley's 
frank and sincere trust and confidence in Congress were repaid 
by prompt and loyal support and cooperation. During his entire 
term of office this mutual trust and regard — so essential to the 
public welfare — was never shadowed by a single cloud. 

He was a Republican. He could not be anything else. A Union 
soldier grafted upon a Clay Whig, he necessarily believed in the 
"American system "* — in protection to home industries; in a strong, 
aggressive nationality; in a liber .il construction of the Constitu- 
tion. What any self-reliant nation might rightly do. he felt this 
nation had power to do. if required by the common welfare and 
not prohibited by our written charter. 

Following the natural bent of his mind, he devoted himself to 
questions of finance and revenue, to the essentials of the national 
housekeeping. He took high rank in the House from the begin- 
ning. His readiness in debate, his mastery of every subject he 
handled, the bright and amiable light he shed about him, and 
above all the unfailing courtesy and good will with which he 
treated friend and foe alike— one of the surest signatures of a na- 
ture born to great destinies — made his service in the House a path- 
way of unbroken success and brought him at last to the all- 
important post of Chairman of Ways and Means and leader of the 
majority. Of the famous reveniie act which, in that capacity, he 
framed and carried through Congress, it is not my ]mrpose here 
and now to speak. The embers of the controversy in the midst 
of which that law had its troubled being are yet too warm to be 
handled on a day like this. I may only say that it was never suf- 
ficiently tested to prove the praises of "^its friends or the criticism 
of its opponents. After a brief existence it passed away, for a 
time, in the storm that swept the Republicans out of "power, 
McKinley alsopas.sed through a brief zone of shadow; his Con- 
gressional district having been rearranged tor that purpose by a 
hostile legislature. 



Someone lias said it is easy to love our enemies; they help tis so 
much more than onr friends. The people whose malevolent skill 
had turned McKinley out of Congress deserved well of him and 
of the Republic. Never was Nemesis more swift and energetic. 
The Republicans of Ohio were saved the trouble of choosing a 
Governor— the other side had chosen one for them. A year after 
McKinley left Congress he was made Governor of Ohio, and two 
years later he was reelected, each time by majorities unhoped-for 
and overwhelming. He came to fill a space in the i)ublic eye 
which obscured a great portion of the field of vision. In two Na- 
tional Conventions, the Presidency seemed within his reach. But 
he had gone there in the interest of others and his honor forbade 
any dalliance with temptation. So his nay was nay— delivered 
with a tone and gesture there was no denying. His hour was not 
yet come. 

There was, however, no long delay. He became, from year to 
year, the most prominent politician and orator in the country. 
Passionately devoted to the principles of his partv. he was always 
ready to do anything, to go anywhere, to proclaim its ideas and 
to support its candidates. His face and his voice became familiar 
to millions of our people; and wherever they were seen and heard, 
men became his partisans. His face was cast in a classic mold; 
you see faces like it in antique marble in the galleries of the Vat- 
ican and in the portraits of the great cardinal-statesmen of Italy; 
his voice was the voice of the perfect orator— ringing, vibrating, 
tireless, persuading by its very sound, by its accent of sincere 
conviction. So prudent and so guarded were all his iitterances, 
so lofty his courtesy, that he never embarrassed his friends, and 
never offended his opponents. For several months before the Re- 
publican National Convention met in 1896. it was evident to all 
who had eyes to see that Mr. McKinley was the only probable 
candidate of his party. Other names were mentioned, of the high- 
est rank in ability, character, and popularity; they were supported 
by powerful combinations; but the nomination of McKinley as 
against the field was ine\itable. 

The campaign he made will be always memorable in our polit- 
ical annals. He and his friends had thought that the issue for the 
year was the distinctive and historic difference between the two 
parties on the subject of the tariff. To this wager of battle the 
discussions of the previous four years distinctly pointed. But no 
sooner had the two parties made their nominations than it be- 
came evident that the opposing candidate declined to accept the 
field of discussion chosen by the Republicans, and proposed to 
put forward as the main issue the free coinage of silver. McKin- 
ley at once accepted this challenge, and, taking the battle for 
protection as already won, went with energy into the discussion 
of the theories presented by his opponents. He had wisely con- 
cluded not to leave his home during the canvass, thus avoiding 
a proceeding which has always been of sinister augury in our 
politics; but from the front porch of his modest house in Canton 
he daily addressed the delegations which came from every part of 
the country to greet him in a series of speeches so strong, so 
varied, so pertinent, so full of facts briefly set forth, of theories 
embodied in a single phrase, that they formed the hourly text for 
the other speakers of his party, and give probably the most con- 
vincing proof we have of his surprising fertility of resource and 
flexibility of mind. All this was done without anxiety or strain. 



10 

* 

I remember a day I spent with him during that busy summer. 
He had made nineteen speeches the day before: that day he made 
many. But in tlie intervals of these addresses he sat in his study 
and talked, with nerves as quiet and a mind as free from care as 
if we had been spending a holiday at the seaside or among the 
hills. 

When he came to the Presidency he confronted a situation of 
the utmost difficulty, wliich miglit well have appalled a man of 
less serene and tranciuil self-conlidence. There had been a state 
of profound comnu'vi'lal and industrial depression, from which 
his friends had said his election would relieve the country. Our 
relations witli the outside world left much to be desired. The 
feeling between the Northern and Southern sections of the Union 
was lacking in the cordiality which was necessary to the welfare 
of both. Hawaii had asked for annexation and had been rejected 
by the preceding Administration. There was a state of things in 
the Caribbean which could not permanently endure. Our 
neighbor's house was on fire, and there were grave doiibts as to 
our rights and duties in the premises. A man either weak or 
rash, either irresolute or headstrong, might have brought ruin on 
himself and incalculable harm to the country. 

Again I crave the pardon of those who differ with me. if, 
against all my intentions, I happen to say a word which may 
seem to them unbefitting the place and hour. But I am here to 
give the opinion which his friends entertained of President 
McKinley. of course claiming no imnuTnity from ci'iticism in 
what I shall say. I believe, then, that the verdict of history will 
be that he met all these grave (piestions with perfect valor and 
incomparal)le ability; that in grappling with them he rose to 
the full height of a great occasion, in a manner which redounded 
to the lasting benefit of the country and to his own immortal 
honor. 

The least desirable form of glory to a man of his habitual mood 
and temper — that of successful war — was nevertheless conferred 
ui)on him by uncontrollable events. He felt the conflict must 
come: lie deplored its necessity: he strained almost to breaking 
his relations -oith his friends, in order, first — if it might be — to pre- 
vent and then to postpone it to the latest possible moment. But 
when the die was cast, he labored with the utmost energy and 
ardor, and wuth an intelligence in military matters which showed 
how much of the soldier still survived in the mature statesman to 
push forward the war to a decisive close. War was an anguish 
to liini: lie wanted it sliort and conclusive. His merciful zeal 
cnnnuunicated itself to his subordinates, and the war. so long- 
dreaded, whose consequences were so momentous, ended in a 
hundred days. 

Mr. Stedman. the dean of our poets, has called him '"Aug- 
menter of the State."' It is a noble title: if justly conferred, it 
ranks him among the few whose names may lie placed definitely 
and forever in charge of the historic Muse. Under his rule 
Hawaii has come to us. ;ind Tutuila: Porto Rico and the vast 
archipclag( > of the East. Cu1)a is free. Our jiosition in the Carib- 
bean is assured beyoud the possilnlity of future (piestion. The 
doctrine called by the name of Monroe, so long derided and de- 
nied by alien publicists, evokes now no challenge or contradiction 
when uttered to the world. It has become an international tru- 
ism. Our sister republics to the south of us are convinced that 



1 1 

we desire only their peace and prosperity. Europe knows that 
we cherish no dreams but those of world-wide connnerce. the ben- 
efit of which shall he to all nations. The State is augmented, Init 
it threatens no nation under heaven. As to those re,i,dons wliich 
have come under the shadow of our flai,^ the possibility of their 
being damaged by such a change of circunistanci's Was in the 
view of McKinley a thing untJiinkable. To believe that we could 
not administer them to their advantage, was to turn infidel to our 
American faith of more than a hundred years. 

In dealing with foreign powers, he will take rank with the 
greatest of our diplomatists. It was a world of which he had 
little special knowledge before coming to the Presidency. But 
his marvelous adapability was in nothing more remarkable than 
in the firm grasp he immediately displayed i7i international rela- 
tions. In preparing for war and in the restoration of peace he 
was alike adroit, courteous, and far-sighted. When a sudden 
emergency declared itself, as in China, in a state of things of 
which our history furnished no precedent and international law 
no safe and certain precept, he hesitated not a moment to take 
the course marked out for him l)y considerations of humanity 
and the national interests. Even while the legations were fight- 
ing for their lives against bands of infuriated fanatics, he decided 
that we were at peace with China; and while that conclusion did 
not hinder him from taking the most energetic measures to rescue 
oiir imperiled citizens, it enabled him to maintain close and 
friendly relations with the wise and heroic viceroys of the south, 
whose resolute stand saved that ancient Empire from anarchy 
and spohation. He disposed of every question as it arose with a 
promptness and clarity of vision that astonished his advisers, and 
he never had occasion to review a judgment or reverse a decision. 
By patience, by firmness, by sheer reasonableness, he improved 
our understanding with all the great pjwers of the world, and 
rightly gained the blessing which belongs to the peacemakers. 

But the achievements of the nation in war and diplomacy are 
thrown in the shade by the vast economical developments which 
taok place during Mr. McKinley's Administration. Up to the 
time of his first election, the country was suffering from a long 
period of depression, the reasons of which I will not try to seek. 
But from the moment the ballots were counted that betokened 
his advent to power a great and momentous movement in advance 
declared itself along all the lines of industry and commerce. In 
the very month of his inauguration steel rails b(>gan to be sold at 
$18 a ton— one of the most significant facts of modern times. It 
meant that American industries had adjusted themselves to the 
long depression— that through the power of the race to organize 
and comlnne, stimulated by the conditions then prevailing, and 
perhaps by the prospect of legislation favoral)le to industry. 
America had begun to undersell th- rest of the world. The 
movement went on without ceasing. The President and his party 
kept the pledges of their platform and their canvass. The Ding- 
ley bill was speedily framed and set in operation. All industries 
responded to the new stimulus and American trade set out on its 
new crusade, not to conciuer the world, but to trade with it on 
terms advantageous to all con(;erned. I will noi: weary you with 
statistics; but one or two words seem necessary to show how the 
acts of McKinley as President kept pace with his professions as 
candidate. His four years of administration were costly; we car- 



12 

ried on a war which, thonjj-h brief, was expensive. Although we 
borrowed two hundred niilbons and paid onr own expenses, with- 
ont asking for indemnity, the effective reduction of the debt now 
exceeds the total of the war bonds. We pay six millions less in 
interest than we did before the war and no bond of the United 
States yields the holder 2 per cent on its market value. So much 
for the Government credit; and we have five hundred and forty- 
six millions of gross gold in the Treasury. 

But. coming to the development of our trade in the four Mc- 
Kinley years, we seem to be entering the realm of fable. In the 
last fiscal year our excess of exports over imports was $664,592,826. 
In the last four years it was §2.354.442,213. These figures are so 
stupendous that they mean little to a careless reader — but con- 
sider! The excess of exports over imports for the whole preced- 
ing period from ITiJO to 1897— from Washington to McKinley— 
was only $356,808,822. 

The mcst extravagant promises made by the sanguine McKin- 
ley advocates five years ago are left out of sight by these sober 
facts. The ' • debtor nation ' ' has become the chief creditor nation. 
The financial center of the world, which required thousands of 
years to journey from the Euphrates to the Thames and the 
Seine, seems passing to the Hudson between daybreak and dark. 

I will not waste your time by explaining that I do not invoke 
for any man the credit of this vast result^ The captain can not 
claim that it is he who drives the mighty steamship over the 
tiinil)ling billows of the trackless deep; but praise is .justly due 
him if he has made the best of her tremendous powers! if he has 
read aright the currents of the sea and the lessons of the stars. 
And we should be ungrateful, if in this hour of prodigioiis pros- 
perity we should fail to remember that William McKinley with 
sublime faith fcjresaw it. with indomitable courage labored for it, 
put his whole heart and mind into the work of bringing it about; 
that it was his voice which, in dark hours, rang out. heralding 
the coming light, as over the twilight waters of the Nile the mys- 
tic cry of ilemnon announced the dawn to Egypt, waking from 
sleep. 

Among the most agreeable incidents of the President's term of 
office were the two journeys he made to the Soiith. The moral re- 
union of the sectic )ns — so long and so ardently desired by him — had 
been initiated by the Spanish war, when the veterans of both 
sides, and their sons, had marched shoiilder to shoulder together 
under the same banner. The President in these journeys sought, 
with more than Tisiial eloquence and pathos, to create a sentiment 
which should end forever the ancient feud. He was too good a 
politician to expect any results in the way of votes in his favor, 
and he accomplished none. But for all that the good seed did 
not fall on barren ground. In the warm and chivalrous hearts of 
that generous people, the echo of his cordial and brotherly words 
will linger long, and his name will l)e cherished in many a house- 
hold where even yet the Lost Cause is worshipped. 

Mr. McKinley was reelected by an overwhelming majority. 
There had l)een little doubt of the result among well-informed 
people; l)ut wlien it was known, ajirofound feeling of relief and 
renewal .of trust were evident among the leaders of capital and of 
industry, not only in tliis country, but everywhere. They felt 
that the immediate future was secure, and that trade and com- 
merce might safely push forward in every field of effort and 



13 

enterprise. He inspired universal confidence, which is the life- 
blood of the commercial system of the world. It began fre- 
quently to be said that such a state of things ought to continue: 
one after another, men of prominence said that the President 
was his own best successor. He paid little attention to these sug- 
gestions imtil they were repeated by some of his nearest friends. 
Then he saw that one of the most cherished traditions of our pub- 
lic life was in danger. The generation which has seen the 
prophecy of the Papal throne— Non videbis annos Petri—twice 
contradicted by the longevity of holy men was in peril of forget- 
ting the unwritten law of our Republic: Thou shalt not exceed 
the years of Washington. The President saw it was time to 
speak, and in his characteristic manner he spoke, briefly, but 
enoiTgh. Where the lightning strikes there is no need of' itera- 
tion. From that hour, no one dreamed of doubting his purpose 
of retiring at the end of his second term, and it will be long be- 
fore another such lesson is required. 

He felt that the harvest time was come, to garner in the friiits 
of so much planting and culture, and he was determined that 
nothing he might do or say should be liable to the reproach of a 
personal interest. Let us say frankly he was a party man: he 
believed the policies advocated by him and his friends counted 
for much in the country's progress and prosperity. He hoped 
in his second term to accomplish substantial results in the de- 
velopment and affirmation of those policies. I spent a day with 
him shortly before he started on his fateful journey to Buffalo. 
Never had I seen him higher in hope and patriotic confidence. 
He was as sure of the future of his country as the Psalmist who 
cried "'Glorious things are spoken of thee, thou City of God." 
He was gratified to the heart that we had arranged a treaty which 
gave us a free hand in the Isthmus. In fancy he saw the canal 
already lauilt and the argosies of the world passing through it in 
peace and amity. He saw in the immense evolution of American 
trade the fulfillment of all his dreams, the reward of all his labors. 
He was — I need not say — an ardent protectionist, never more sin- 
cere and devoted than during those last days of his life. He re- 
garded reciprocity as the biilwark of protection — not a breach, 
but a fiTlfillment of the law. The treaties which for four years 
had been preparing under his personal supervision he regarded 
as ancillary to the general scheme. He was opposed to any revo- 
lutionary plan of change in the existing legislation: he was care- 
ful to point out that everything he had done was in faithful 
compliance ■unth the law itself. 

In that mood of high hope, of generous expectation, he went to 
Buffalo, and there, on the threshold of eternity, he delivered that 
memorable speech, worthy for its loftiness of tone, its blameless 
morality, its breadth of view, to be regarded as his testament to 
the nation. Through all his pride of country and his joy of its 
success, runs the note of solemn warning, as in Kipling's noble 
hymn, "Lest we forget." 

Our capacity to produce has developed so enormously and our products 
have so multiplied that the problem of more markets requires our urtcent 
and immediate attention. Only a broad and enlightened policy will keep 
what we have. No otlier policy will get more. In these times of marvelous 
Irasiness energj and gain we oii^lit to be looking to the future, strengthening 
the weak places in our industrial and commercial systems, that we niay be 
ready for any storm or strain. 

By sensible trade arrangements which will not interrupt our home produc- 
tion we shall extend the outlets for oiir increasing surplus. A system which 



14 

provides a mutual exchange of commodities is manifestly essential to the 
continued and heatlifnl growth of our export trade. We must not repose in 
fancied security that w j can forever sell everything and buy little or nothing. 
If such a thingVere possible, it wniild not ^n^ best for us or for those with 
whom we deaf * * * Recipi-ocity is the natural outgrowtli of our wonder- 
ful industrial development under the doniestir policy now firmly estaljlished. 
* * * The iH'riod ot cxclusiveness is past. The expansion of our trade and 
commerce is tin- pr.-ssing problem. Commercial wars are uni)rofitable. A 
policy of good will and friendly trade relations will prevent rfi)risals. Reci- 
procity treaties are in haruKjny with the spirit of the times; measviresof re- 
taliation are not. 

I wish I liad time to read the whole of this wise and weighty 
speech: nothing- I might say could give snch a picture of the 
President's mind and character. His years of apprenticeship had 
been served. He stood that day past master of the art of states- 
manship. He had nothing more to ask of the people. He owed 
them nothing but truth and faithful service. His mind and heart 
were purged of the temptations which beset all men engaged in 
the struggle to survive. In view of the revelation of his nature 
vouchsafed to us that day. and the fate wliich impended over 
him, we can only say in deep affection and solemn awe, " Blessed 
are the pure in heart , for they shall see God. ' " Even for that 
vision he w^as not unworthy. 

He had not long to wait. The next day sped the bolt of doom, 
and for a week after — in an agony of dread broken by illusive 
glimpses of hope thiit our prayers might be answered — the nation 
waited for the end. Nothing in the glorious life that we saw 
gradually waning was more admirable and exemplary than its 
close. The gentle humanity of his words, when he saw his as- 
sailant in danger of summary vengeance, "'Don't let them htirt 
him:"" his chivalrotis care that the new^s should be broken gently 
to his wife: the fine courtesy with which he apologized for the 
damage which his death would bring to the great Exhibition; and 
the heroic resignation of his final words, "" It is God's way. His 
will, not ours, be done."" were all the instinctive expressions of a 
nature so lofty and so pure that pride in its nobility at once soft- 
ened and enhanced the nation"s sense of loss. The Republic 
grieved over stich a son — but is proud forever of having produced 
him. After all. in spite of its tragic ending, his life was extraor- 
dinarily ha])iiy. He had. all his days, troops of friends, the cheer 
of fame and fruitful labor: and he became at last — 

" On fortune's crowning slope, 
"The pillar of a people's hope, 
"The center of a world's desire." 

He was fortunate even in his untimely death, for an event so 
tragical called the world imperatively to the immediate study of 
his life and character, and thus anticipated the sure praises of 
posterity. 

Every young and growing people has to meet, at moments, the 
probleuis of its destiny. Whether the (luestion comes, as in 
Eg>'pt, from a sphinx, symbol of the hostile forces of omnipotent 
nature, who punishes with instant death our failure to under- 
stand her meaning: or whether it comes, as in Jerusalem, from the 
Lord of Hosts, who commands the building of His temple, it 
comes always with the warning that the jmst is past, and ex- 
perience vain. ■■ Your fathers, wliere are they? and the prophets, 
do they live forever':*"" Tlie fatliers are dead: the pi'ox)hets are 
silent: the (piestions are new. and have no answer but in time. 

"When the horny outside case wliich protects the infancy of a 



15 

chrysalis nation siTtldenly bursts, and. in a single abrupt shock, 
it finds itself floating on wings wliich had not existed before, 
whose strength it has never tested, among dangers it can not foresee 
and is without experience to measure, every motion is a problem, 
and every hesitation may be an error. The past gives no clue to 
the future. The fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do 
they live forever? We are ourselves the fathers! We are our- 
selves the prophets! The questions that are put to us we must 
answer without delay, without help — for the sphinx allows no 
one to pass. 

At such moments we may be humbly grateful to have had 
leaders simple in mind, clear in vision — as far as human vision 
can safely extend — penetrating in knowledge of men, supple and 
flexilile under the strains and pressures of society, instinct with the 
energy of new life and untried strength, cautious, calm, and, 
above all. gifted in a supreme degree with the most surely victo- 
rious of all political virtiies — the genius of infinite patience. 

The obvious elements which enter into the fame of a public man 
are few and by no means recondite. The man who fills a great 
station in a period of change, who leads his country successfully 
through a time of crisis: who. by his power of persuading and 
controlling others, has been able to command the best thought of 
his age. so as to leave his country in a moral or material condi- 
tion in advance of where he foimd it — such a man's po.sition in 
history is secure. If, in addition to this, his written or spoken 
words possess the subtle quality which carry them far and lodge 
them in men's hearts: and. more than all. if his utterances and 
actions, while informed wath a lofty morality, are yet tinged with 
the glow of hiiman sympathy, the fame of such a man will shine 
like a beacon through the mists of ages — an object of reverence, 
of imitation, and of love. It should be to us an occasion of 
solemn pride that in the three great crises of our history such a 
man was not denied us. The moral value to a nation of a re- 
nown such as Washington's and Lincoln's and McKinley's is 
beyond all computation. No loftier ideal can be held up to the 
emulation of ingenuous youth. With such examples we can not 
be wholly ignoble. Grateful as we maybe for what they did. let 
lis be still more grateful for what they were. While our daily 
being, our public policies, still feel the influence of their work, 
let us pray that in our spirits their lives may be voluble, calling 
us upward and onward. 

There is not one of us but feels prouder of his native land be- 
cause the august figure of Washington presided over its begin- 
nings: no one but vows it a tenderer love becaiise Lincoln poiired 
out his blood for it: no one but must feel his devotion for his 
country renewed and kindled when he remembers how McKinley 
loved, revered, and served it, showed in his life how a citizen 
should live, and in his last hoiir taught us how a gentleman could 
die. 



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